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how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:38 am
by Shadowflame909
Several years ago...The end of the round would be signified when the majority of jobs science team got antag stuff. Xenobio had wizard stuff.

Now we're sort of teetering around antag stuff but slightly worse and with very specific usage.

But antagonist gear has also gotten weaker.

We're in the opposite of an arms race. We're in a floor race!

So I ask you all...When can I get a sling and throw rocks at a changeling?

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 9:31 am
by NecromancerAnne
You can kinda already sling rocks at changelings. Floor tiles are not terrible ranged weapons for something so abundantly available.

My opinion is that most of that shit is hollow progression that doesn't really mean much at all. What do you do as a xenoling with endless revives? Not much other than present a timebomb to any threat on the station or a escalation nightmare from being indistinguishable from an antagonist.

And since threats were effectively on a timer before these little antag wannabes get into gear, you saw often antags speedrunning to kill everyone as quickly as possible to beat these guys out, even with fairly tame objectives, or killing the high power late content jobs before they got underway.

This design is disruptive and cause a feedback loop that ultimately pushes rounds into concluding as rapidly as possible.

Progression based threats seem to have this problem as well, with heretics and cultists both proving to be only really beatable if you donk them early (and utterly), or you call the shuttle at the earliest opportunity. Hivemind was this as well, but the speedrun strategy there was more difficult given it was potentially a silent antagonist before it hit pinkgang. I'm sure ye olde Shadowling wasn't much better from what I've been told.

Forget any of this progress shit. This is entirely useless content and only makes the problem worse by tricking people into thinking that the only meaningful gameplay has to come with ever more powerful rewards for dubious value and use. A job should have a fun loop inherent to the gameplay itself, and anything gained as progression should be further access to more content in your job, or rounding out content already available with greater effectiveness (think some of the medical research). It doesn't have to be without rewards entirely, just that they should be related to that job and help complement it. It isn't about content floors, it's about everything between the floor and ceiling being dead air.

Also jobs should stay the fuck in their lane and not take over the work of others. This includes validhunting tools. Keep it to sec if anywhere.

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:20 pm
by Omega_DarkPotato
To add on to NecromancerAnne's post, power corrupts/absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Muh gamer gearTM or absurdly powerful gear tends to have an effect on more than just a handful of people - how often have you heard the excuse of "well I had it I might as well use it"?

Antag shit, wizard shit, maxcaps with no use case, et cetera all has a negative effect in the form of people getting bored and either sliding the reason to use this gear down or just selfantagging because "lol it'll be funny".
I'm no fan of a hard line on "how much is too much" as I feel like there's definitely circumstances where it's completely reasonable to powergame your ass off, and it's not just nuclear war being declared either - but a lot of the time I'm finding myself wishing people wouldn't go to the extremes they did, because they're now left with absurd abilities and nothing to do other than grief and selfantag. (Which they then do)
I'm not a fan of the example in the post either where people feel forced to preemptively eliminate targets out of fear of retribution occurring.


Sci definitely needs to be hit with the nerf bat at some point. It's still got wizard bullshit.

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:41 pm
by Shadowflame909
yeah thats fair

an arms race of defense at the very least would be a much preferable outlook compared to an arms race of offense and no one to use it on.

Imagine the crew being strong enough to contain even nuclear devastation. That'd be a real trip.

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:48 pm
by datorangebottle
Omega_DarkPotato wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:20 pm Sci definitely needs to be hit with the nerf bat at some point. It's still got wizard bullshit.
can we give scientists a good gameplay loop before or while hitting it with the nerf bat?
they currently don't have one.
► Show Spoiler

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:59 pm
by Rohen_Tahir
Shadowflame909 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:38 am Several years ago...The end of the round would be signified when the majority of jobs science team got antag stuff. Xenobio had wizard stuff.

Now we're sort of teetering around antag stuff but slightly worse and with very specific usage.

But antagonist gear has also gotten weaker.

We're in the opposite of an arms race. We're in a floor race!

So I ask you all...When can I get a sling and throw rocks at a changeling?
When you code it! :twisted:

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:06 am
by cacogen
its only bad if they can kill people with it in one hit then i dont want them to have it

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2021 5:24 pm
by terranaut
Shadowflame909 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:38 am So I ask you all...When can I get a sling and throw rocks at a changeling?
'member when a crowbar was all you needed to kill someone running after you very quickly and easily, just crowbarring up tiles and tossing them at your pursuer?
i 'member

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2021 9:40 am
by Rohen_Tahir
datorangebottle wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:48 pm
Omega_DarkPotato wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:20 pm Sci definitely needs to be hit with the nerf bat at some point. It's still got wizard bullshit.
can we give scientists a good gameplay loop before or while hitting it with the nerf bat?
they currently don't have one.
► Show Spoiler
The maintainers are aware of those problems, expect multiple failed attempts to fix them within this decade.

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:39 pm
by Pandarsenic
R&D has already had at least 3 or 4 different versions on /tg/ alone within the past 10 years

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 11:48 am
by JusticeGoat
my main issue is /tg/ code is built as a one size fits all, the needs of mrp and lrp are somewhat different with the nerfs hitting because someone on lrp had to game too hard with stuff but we don't have enough coders to maintain two forks. :(

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 2:23 pm
by Rohen_Tahir
JusticeGoat wrote: Sun Dec 05, 2021 11:48 am my main issue is /tg/ code is built as a one size fits all, the needs of mrp and lrp are somewhat different with the nerfs hitting because someone on lrp had to game too hard with stuff but we don't have enough coders to maintain two forks. :(
However, there is a very big HRP server that runs on a codebase that is a downstream of tgstation. We should make Manuel run that.

Re: how strong is too strong for the crew to have?

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 4:49 pm
by Farquaar
Rohen_Tahir wrote: Sun Dec 05, 2021 2:23 pm
JusticeGoat wrote: Sun Dec 05, 2021 11:48 am my main issue is /tg/ code is built as a one size fits all, the needs of mrp and lrp are somewhat different with the nerfs hitting because someone on lrp had to game too hard with stuff but we don't have enough coders to maintain two forks. :(
However, there is a very big HRP server that runs on a codebase that is a downstream of tgstation. We should make Manuel run that.
But Manuel isn't an HRP server. And it shouldn't be.